Prospects seem bleak for getting a major climate bill through Congress: If anything, the atmosphere on Capitol Hill has grown even more toxic since Obama's proposal for a cap-and-trade system to throttle carbon emissions died without a whimper before the 2010 midterm elections. And unless the U.S. reins in its own carbon and persuades nations like China to go along, it's going to be difficult to bring pollution levels down as sharply as scientists say is necessary to avoid calamity.

Legislating the climate issue is even more difficult than finding a public consensus. With Democrats now in the minority in the House and with a smaller Senate majority, it’s hard to see how such legislation would pass now, without being significantly scaled back or without some pressing new impetus.

DETROIT: At the 2010 North American International Auto Show, electric and hybrid vehicles grabbed the headlines. Fast-forward three years, and electric vehicles played a minor role at the Detroit event that saw performance and luxury vehicles steal the spotlight.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Ca.) on Tuesday urged the Environmental Protection Agency to make the most of its power to draft rules that would tamp down on carbon emissions from existing power plants.

“I think Sandy was a turning point in terms of the public’s sense of the extent of damage that climate change can do to this country,” Boxer told reporters Tuesday. “A lot of people don’t recognize that EPA has huge authority here to reduce carbon [sic] in the air.”